‘Stand Your Ground’ fight begins
Raja’s defense attorneys play video, call experts on first day of hearing.
The cadence of Palm Beach Gardens Police Officer Nouman Raja’s words never slowed from an anxious staccato in the recorded interview, not even when he described how he selected a T-shirt to wear to work hours before the early morning three years ago when he shot and killed stranded motorist Corey Jones.
The Oct. 18, 2015, “walkthrough” video holds what prosecutors have characterized as inexplicable, inexcusable lies that show that Raja is guilty of attempted murder and manslaughter by culpable negligence for his on-duty shooting of Jones, 31. But on Monday, Raja’s defense attorneys were the ones who played the video in a crowded courtroom for Circuit Judge Samantha Schosberg Feuer.
They added the footage in with the testimony of four experts on the first of a two-day hearing in
their quest to have Feuer throw out Raja’s case under Florida’ s“Stand Your Ground” law.
Raja claims he acted in self-defense when he gunned down Jones near the offffffffffff-ramp of Interstate 95 and PGA Boulevard because Jones came at him with a gun. Jones, a building manager who also was a professional drummer for several churches and a reggae band, was on the line with a roadside assistance operator trying to get a tow truck to move his broken SUV at the time Raja drove an unmarked van the wrong way up the ramp and approached him in plainclothes.
“I didn’ t want to die ,” Raja told the investigators in the video played for Feuer, describing his feelings as he fifired two sets of three shots, including the fatal shot that ripped through Jones’ aorta and within seconds made him the local test case in the larger national debate over deadly police encounters involving mostly young black men.
Recent changes in legal rules surrounding “Stand Your Ground” hearings in Florida means that prosecutors will have to convince Feuer that Raja did not act in self-defense in order for his case to survive. Still, Raja’s defense team on the first day of the hearing appeared to spend most of their time not by introducing a self-defense scenario, but by combating inconsistencies in Raja’s story.
First, New York-based audio expert Frank Piazza testified that after he enhanced a recording of the fat al encounter from the roadside assistance call, he heard what he is “at least 50 percent sure” was Raja’s voice uttering three syllables before the recording picks up Jones saying “huh?”
The moment has become pivotal in Raja’s case because although he told investigators that he introduced himself as a police offifficer when he approached Jones, the call doesn’t appear to capture any such introduction. And in the video interview played for Feuer, Raja said Jones stepped out of the car and told him “I’m good, I’m good” before Raja made his introduction, which is also inconsistent with the audio recording.
Raja’s defense te am of Richard Lubin, Scott Richardson and Ralph King III are arguing that the intelligible portion of the recording could have held that introduction.
But under cross examination, Assistant State Attorney Brian Fernandes scoffed at Piazza’s testimony.
“You mean to tell me that the defense paid you $9,000, and all you can say that there was a voice in the recording, it was human, and maybe it was Mr. Raja’s?” Fernandes asked at one point.
In the afternoon, a heated exchange developed between Chief Assistant State Attorney Adrienne Ellis and Christopher Chapman, a New Jersey-based police use of force expert, after Chapman said it would be inappropriate for him as an expect to determine whether Raja was a credible witness but concluded that he was acting reasonably when he shot Jones.
“His actions were justifiably reasonable and a similarly situated offifficer under the same circumstances would have done the same thing,” Chapman concluded.
Ellis pressed Chapman on the details of Raja’s story, including his claim that Jones pointed a gun at him with a red “laser light” that was trained directly on him, prompting him to fire his department-approved Glock .40 caliber pistol. It turned out that Jones’ .38-caliber Jimenez Arms gun had no such light, and it was never fifired in the exchange.
Chapman explained the discrepancy by saying that Raja had no intent to lie about the laser, and was merely making a statement based on his perception.
“So you are assessing credibility here. Whether you say that you are, or not, you’re doing exactly what you said you weren’t going to do,” Ellis said.
“Is that a question?” Chapman asked.
“No, it’s not. I’m saying that’s what you did,” Ellis said.
Chapman and other experts, Michael Knox and Michael La Forte, all said on Monday that police offifficers can, and often do, make mistakes when recalling the events before, during and after an on-duty killing, and it doesn’t mean that their actions are unjustified.
In Raj a’s case, a Palm Beach County grand jury in May 2016 determined his actions were not justifified, and Palm Beach County State Attorney Dave Aronberg pushed forward with the criminal charges soon afterward. Raja, who was since terminated by Gardens police, remains free on $250,000 bond and house arrest ahead of the trial that is expected to begin in July if Feuer denies his “Stand Your Ground” claim.
Monday marked more than three months from the day Jones would have celebrated his 34th birthday, and it was the 15th birthday of his niece, Tyrina.
Her father, Jones’ older brother, Clinton “C.J.” Jones Jr., stepmother, sisters and other relatives were among the onlookers in the packed courtroom Monday that also included local attorneys and members of the activist group Black Lives Matter.
Several of Jones’ relatives wore T-shirts with a pair of medical examiner sketches depicting the wounds on Jones’ body, along with a reminder of Jones’ last words before Raja started firing: “Hold on.”
The hearing is expected to continue today with testimony from medical witnesses. Florida’s Supreme Court, meanwhile, has yet to decide the issue of whether law enforcement offifficers are allowed to claim prosecutable immunity under “Stand Your Ground.”